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Welcome to the Modern Platonist blog. This blog has been set up to point out Platonic principles that are relevant to our life today and to help the inhabitant in our current society realize just how much is wrong with it. In the end, the hope of all Platonists is to follow their teacher (Socrates/Plato) in harmonizing their soul, or their inner chariot, into riding peacefully with the chariots of the Divine. For this reason, philosophy (if we mean by this word what the people who coined it did) is the practice and preparation for death, if death means ultimate union with the Divine.

Many people would, at this point, question why anyone should immerse themselves in such dark subjects, when life in today’s world has enough darkness throughout. My response to that is that you cannot come to the dawn before going through midnight. Platonism is not pessimistic, but entirely optimistic and hopeful. However, you cannot get to hope without realizing that you need it. Platonism offers a way out of the confusion of the world, but you have to understand just exactly how confused the world is in order to want a way out first.

This is my hope, at least in part, to offer a helping arm in our common way out of the cave of this world into the eternal realm of the Forms.

May the light of the stars shine upon your faces,

Modern Platonist

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12 comments on “Home”

Do your readers know that you send hate mail to random websites who are unaware of you? It is strangely odd that you would TARGET a non-profit website who teaches spiritual principles and who helps and has helped many individuals over many years to make a spiritual connection with whomever they chose as a religion or God, recover from serious mental and physical illness, as well as life long problems. We would appreciate if you would refrain from targeting any one on the net randomly to attack, insult and slander or libel as it causes you to appear as an unprofessional individual or organization/blog. Especially, since you do not write by your own admission and have no real expertise in the matters regarding the information on our website. Thank you for both heeding this admonition for better behavior and treatment of your fellow travelers on the path.

If informing my readers is your aim, then I will provide the proper context. I was surfing at some point around 3 AM during finals time and I came upon your website. It interested me, so I started reading. About 30 seconds after, I saw that there were some very basic orthographical mistakes, so I decided to send you an email about it. I don’t see how that amounts to “hate-mail,” but I digress.

Also, in favor of being on the same page, “libel” (as far as law is concerned, since I am speaking to a legal team it seems) refers to a published damaging remark. Seeing how I sent you an email or, as you call it, “hate-mail” I do not see how it would also be a libel.

The articles in question that were attacked unmercifully by you at your 3 am drive by shooting at our website (where only sincere questions about spirituality or a person who was in trouble and needed emergency counseling for suicidal tendencies or prayer requests) were written by outside sources when you told us that you “had lost all respect for our website because of an editing error of a plural of the words Priest and Priestess”, without any restraint. Your anger levels towards the Mystic Tiger Ashram (a religious organization run by a woman) which were total strangers to you, would warrant you to go into some anger management counseling or course for you to deal with your level of aggression towards us. And we don’t even know you.

You were so aggressive and insulting to a non-profit church on two misspelled words on a large website that was built to educate people for free or for donations that was out of character for any sane person who was not driven by some mystery ‘hate’. Don’t you understand that logic?

The articles in question which were attacked by you, which you eviscerated, were not even written by us at all. You had not read the articles fully and as a result made yourself appear as a desperate would be false ‘editor’ who is evidently still in college or high school suffering from some hatred of alternative philosophies it would seem.

We have helped many individuals for no charge over the years at Mystic Tiger Ashram and we have the best reputation of any church out there. Where did your attack come from? We cannot even imagine as you complained about two words and the fact that they did not have the ‘possessive’ apostrophe in the correct spots only – as being your source of ‘attack’ upon us. Are you a terrorist of some sort? If not then WHY TERRORIZE US?

So, the extremely damming and slanderous (libelous) email to us at 3 am was clearly written by a person who is a hater or someone who had partaken of too many substances before writing to us – as this is all that we can possibly detect as a motive that you would possibly have.

We had not even heard of you before or since and you have never been a student or client to the Mystic Tiger Ashram, so why us? Why HATE US? It seems we were just a complete ‘random’ verbal and slanderous attack insulting the entire organization over a misspelled word that was not even our article – but an article that was properly ‘cited’. Unlike your articles on the modern Platonist, which are not properly cited and break the rules of plagiarism all over your site.

For your information ‘LIBEL’ is written slander or didn’t you know that either? You might wish to look it up and re-read the very unkind and even cruel email which you sent to insult every member of this organization. You are both reckless and immature in your offerings and we advise you to grow up a bit, write a bit more, and take a class on A.P.A. standards before you even think about critiquing other websites for what their content is or is not.

Being a ‘student’ you should have learned in college/high school not to assume content without reading fully and to seek out who the writer actually is before your hate begins to spew forth in dysfunctional rantings which can never be retracted. You never answered any of the three emails which our organization returned to you about your behavior and that would indicate some sort of embarrassment or maybe remorse on your part? In either case, you seem to have blocked the memory of your rantings based upon embarrassment to us or simply chosen not to remember as you are apparently mad.

I debated for a little bit whether I should respond to this post or whether I should just leave it on display for what it is, but I guess it’s best if I clear all doubt and respond to it.

In general terms, the dramatics in this post is exactly what I was talking about in that first post to Osho and fully deserves the words of Socrates when he calls sophists pastry bakers. If any of my readers feels ashamed by my position on this or otherwise thinks I am being too harsh, then they have not read, or at least not understood what I have written and, perhaps, I am not really the best person for them to pull ideas from. My words are not for everybody, only for those who desire change.

1) Once again, can we please stop treating this like it was a nuclear attack? I sent you an email, that’s it. By the way, the word you are looking for is “merciless.” Also, the correct quote from the email is “your credibility in my eyes has been annihilated by the fact that you cannot even spell correctly,” or something of that sort (but I do remember that it was your credibility I was talking about, not respect).

2) I do not see what the fact that your website is a religious organization being run by a woman has to do with anything. Souls have no gender and I am not in the least interested in your physical appearance or your physical gender, only your soul.

3) I do not see how my email, which, by the way, if you had simply followed would have made your website more professional, warrants your discernment that I have anger issues. By that logic, every person who gets a bad review for a movie or book they respectively directed or wrote can simply claim that the reviewer is mentally deranged, but I personally think that’s an extreme position. The point is, I do not see the logic in that argument because logic fails to appear in that argument.

4) I do not see how I “eviscerated” the articles in question or appeared “a desperate would be false ‘editor’” (that’s ad hominem in case you can’t see the difference between what I was saying and what you are saying). No matter who wrote the articles, they are in your website, as the editor of the website, the burden of editing them falls to you, the fact that you did not detect those mistakes shows that you are at least careless.

5) Perhaps when I said that I was surfing the web during a study day for finals and in my “About” page, where I said I was in college made your discovery that I am probably a student a little less impressive?

6) A point about “alternative philosophies.” It is clear that you do not know the meaning of the word “philosophy,” because it means the love (and subsequent pursuit) of wisdom. By that definition, you cannot have an “alternative philosophy.” Either you seek true wisdom (which is the same for all, not something for some people and another thing for others) or you don’t. How you can be “alternative” about such a thing I do not know and cannot understand, so if you concede to me that you are a true seeker of wisdom and don’t seemly seek to appear to be one, then I will continue to offer what I have spent a considerable amount of time and a lot of money to learn with the objective of guiding you to true wisdom. If you are not willing to make that concession, then I have nothing to offer you, but neither do you to the world.

7) You have the best reputation of any Church out there? That’s nice. I don’t know how that gives you some pass on whether you are logically and philosophically consistent or on whether you have a basic understanding on grammar. That being said, I would do the same thing to someone as deplorable as the Westboro Baptist Church (and I have, but they chose not to respond) and someone as reputable as the Catholic Church (and I have, on more than one occasion), aside from non-religious organizations.

8) Why terrorize you? I don’t think “terrorize” is quite in order, but if you were asking about why I would bother you, then I would have to respond that it comes with my job description. For better or for worse, I have chosen to be a Platonist and I fully intent to keep with the master’s (Socrates’) teaching when he says he has been and continue to be the gnat that stings the horse that is Athens. That got Socrates killed and I don’t expect it will bring me lilies and butterflies, but I would have to change my name if I were not willing to do it.

9) I must say, I did “partake” in too many substances when I emailed you, the amount of caffeine in my bloodstream must have been ridiculous. As for true motive, look to point 6 and 7.

10) I am not a client of your website and I can assure you I will not need your services. That said, I got to your website and sent you an email about what I thought needed correction, I guess that means that I hate you. It seems that the true question behind that question, however, is why I bother. The answer to that is that I am not here and I did not start this blog to make friends. I do not expect that many people will like me. In fact, I am not at all surprised at your reaction, this is the time we live in. However, as a Platonist, I believe that there is truth that is present in all of our souls, you just need a gnat to sting you every now and then for it to come out. One would wonder though, why would I choose to live this life? The answer for it is that, as a philosophy student, I have come to love the soul. If it were up to me, I would not see even one soul hurt and mangled by the anti-philosophy that plagues the modern world, so I will not give up trying to help to health any soul that I come into contact with, randomly or otherwise, no matter what the personal cost involved in it is. So hate me or love me, as long as you are here, as long as you keep the debate going, that will be my objective. If you think you’ve had enough of me, then you can turn the other way, but as for me, I will not stop seeking wisdom and helping along others who are likeminded until my soul and my body separate.

11) As a postscript, my “hate spew[ing] forth in dysfunctional rantings (sic) which can never be retracted” is apparent to you from a three to five line email? That’s quite impressive.

12) So we can settle this once and for all: “libel 1) n. to publish in print (including pictures), writing or broadcast through radio, television or film, an untruth about another which will do harm to that person or his/her reputation, by tending to bring the target into ridicule, hatred, scorn or contempt of others. 2) v. to broadcast or publish a written defamatory statement.”
• First, my email to you was not published (at least not by me).
• Second, my email to you did not contain an untruth (you had misspelled the words which I claimed you had and you have accepted that).
• Third, I made it very clear that your loss in credibility was my opinion, not an objective fact (I don’t think you can say that one has objectively lost credibility if credibility can only be subjective).
• Fourth, I did not aim to defame you in that email, but to point out mistakes in your website.
Clear enough?

A fascinating discussion is definitely worth comment.
There’s no doubt that that you ought to write more about this subject matter, it may not be a taboo matter but usually folks don’t speak about
these issues. To the next! Kind regards!!

Noetic greetings. I am an actual real live Platonist contemplative ascetic, renunciant, mystic and philosopher of many years standing tenuously surviving alone and without support in this brave new modern world. Some short essays and translations that I did are at http://www.eumaiosllc.com. Most of these are also attached to my profile at http://www.academia.edu, and there are videos of me reading just the essays on YouTube. I thought that perhaps these might be of interest to you and/or some of your readers.

Hello! I just discovered your blog yesterday and haven’t had time to do it justice yet. But I very much agree that Platonic principles are as relevant to our lives today as they were to the lives of Plato’s contemporaries. I’d even agree that Platonic principles help highlight things in modern society that could and should be better than they are. (You and I might not choose the same things, but hey — that’s what makes philosophical thinking such fun!)

For whatever it is worth, I have started a blog of my own with a similar purpose in mind: to think afresh about things from a classical (in practice, largely Platonic) point of view. You can find it here: http://hoseaspatio.blogspot.com/. I haven’t written as voluminously as you have yet, but all things come with time.

Anyway, I’m just pleased to find that somebody else had the same idea and is laboring in the same vineyard. Welcome!